Like Akoebel and LTU have already mentioned, the pacing of the chapter is too slow, especially in the beginning. It gets better when Sirat’s on the move, trying to do some good – he actually seems to care at that point.
But at the start you still have Sirat in hiding and he’s not doing anything interesting for the first couple of pages. The fact that he doesn’t seem to care much what happens, to any and all sides, makes him feel detached from the action going on around him. He could die, but if he does it doesn’t matter to him. If it doesn’t matter to Sirat why should it matter to the reader?
Another issue with the slow pace is the passive voice: “had been”, “had to guess”, ”should be”, “had lasted”, even more “had been”, “had seen” . You can scratch a lot of ‘had’ without losing anything significant while gaining a sense of immediacy.
You also use a lot of tell, especially in the first part where Sirat is hiding. You tell us he heals fast, after the pain in his arm suddenly disappears. I’d rather see more of his healing than be told about how bruises fade, etc. You then tell us he’s a foundling and that’s why he’s inclined to help children. Even later you tell us he’s impossibly strong, moments before he does something with that strength. All of this is tell, not show.
The impression I got from the screaming woman, which Sirat could hear over the sounds of the siege and the walls of his shelter, made me think she was right outside. Though he might not have been able to move fast the fact that she’s minutes away makes it really unlikely he could’ve heard her.
I’m not really sure what Sirat thinks he’s going to do by pushing the debris away from the top. The whole setup seems unlikely. Up to this point Sirat has shown no feats of super strength, either to us, or to himself, so he shouldn’t have any reason to think he can push the block away. To me it doesn’t seem likely he should even try. Get the kid out perhaps, even though that’ll saddle him with a child, but not do something convoluted to save the mother.
Up on the roof I’m having real problems envisioning the scene with the block, how it’s positioned, angled, etc. The way I’m envisioning the block in order to accommodate it being near a chimney, crush the roof and block the entrance, means the block is quite tall and angled perhaps 80 degrees or so with respect to the ground – otherwise the entrance of the house wouldn’t be blocked.
Now, the position of the chimney and the block. Either the chimney is at a side, so Sirat can push the block sideways, or it’s in front of the block so he has to push it back. Since the block falls back to Sirat this has to be the option. So Sirat has to tip it over, first back to ninety degrees so it stand straight and then past that point to have it fall away from the house. He’d need a lot of force to manage that.
Or am I reading the situation wrong? In either case, the scene might do with some clarifying edits.
Also, Sirat’s conclusion that because the house has a chimney means the owner is wealthy is one thing, but the house doesn’t have to be hers, she doesn’t have to have any money left even if it is. He sounds pretty naive thinking he’s going to get paid for this.
Sirat is not his real name, he took his name when he was eight. Maybe it’s just me, but for an eight year old to know enough about weapons and assassins to see significance in the weapon is a little odd to me. Maybe it makes perfect sense in your setting for children of his age to know, but not at this junction.
Sirat also seems to grow younger as the chapter progresses. At first his dispassionate demeanour makes me think he’s a man who’s seen too much. Then in the middle of the chapter he acts like he’s an adolescent, while at the end when he’s being chased and called boy I’m thinking early teens. Very confusing.
To answer your question, I think it would help if you made him less apathetic. When he’s chased I’m rooting for him to escape. At this point I do care what happens, but it’s only at the end of the chapter. So I wonder at how effective “I just want to left alone” is going to be, because the end result is still that he isn’t doing anything other than hide for the first couple of pages.